Will Equinor add more barrels to the ~260 MMboe recoverable already proven so far in the successful North of Troll exploration campaign? The company is now back in the area where it has spudded well 35/10-7 targeting the Toppand prospect in PL630 with partner Wellesley Petroleum (50%) after a break of a few months.
The anticipated reservoirs of Toppand are the Etive and Oseberg (Broom) formations of the Middle Jurassic Brent Group as well as the underlying Cook Fm of Lower Jurassic age.
Toppand is situated along strike of the dry Apodida well 35/11-25S & A, but given the rapidly deepening basin towards the Lomre Terrace the target reservoir of Toppand is around 400 m deeper than in Apodida. The well is expected to TD at 3630 m.
Attend the NCS Exploration Strategy Conference, 17-18 November in Stavanger, and hear how operators are shaping up their strategies to find more barrels in mature areas.
As mentioned above, Equinor has been very active in the area north of Troll recently, with discoveries in Swisher, Echino South, Røver North and Blasto. And as Tom Dreyer from Equinor said during the Exploration Revived Conference in September this year, chasing volumes around 5 MMboe is already worthwhile given the proximity of North of Troll prospects to existing infrastructure.
Looking at what 2022 and possibly the tail end of this year will bring for the area, Equinor has planned another well between the Fram and Swisher discoveries in PL090, a well in the Røver North area (probably targeting the Røver South prospect) and a slightly more “exotic” well in PL293B targeting Paleocene injectites and the Upper Cretaceous of the Kveikje n’Roll prospect (35/10-8S).
In summary, the area is looking to remain on the exploration radar for some time, and could also be expected to see more development activity as some of the recent finds are being tied back to existing infrastructure.
HENK KOMBRINK
